EDPSY 505

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EDPSY 505

• August 27, 2007

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Mayer (2000)
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The Big Picture

• There are many different research processes
• Each has its own
• Philosophy of inquiry
• Methods of inquiry
• Purposes for doing research
• Processes and rules
• Quantitative research has its own
• Here is one process

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(No Transcript)
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Scientific Thinking Vs. Everyday Thinking

• Everyday thinking
• Biased questions
• Do you really support the war?
• Limited sampling
• Your friends and family are different from my
  friends and family
• Selective attention
• Confirmation bias
• Inaccurate generalization
• Stereotypes

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Scientific Thinking Vs. Everyday Thinking (Cont.)

• Scientific thinking.
• Empirical observations.
• Empirical capable of being confirmed, verified,
  or disproved by observation or experiment.
• Systematic.
• Objective.
• Less dependent on emotion or personal prejudices.
• Replicable.

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Purposes of Scientific Research

• Exploratory
• What is out there?
• Descriptive
• What does this group look like?
• Explanatory
• Why and how are these constructs related?
• Evaluation
• Does this program work?
• Prediction
• Who will become depressed?

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The Research Problem
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• Research Problem
• An area of general concern
• Research Questions
• The problem posed as a question
• How can a principal improve faculty morale?
• Does behavioral therapy improve childrens
  behavior?
• Do flow charts improve scientific understanding?
• Some questions are not researchable
• Is god good?
• What is the meaning of life?

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Characteristics of Good Research Questions

• Feasible
• Clear
• Constitutive definition
• By Example
• Operational definition
• Significant
• Worth investigating
• Strong rationale
• Ethical

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Variables
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On the Theory of Scales of Measurement (Stevens,
1946)

• Measurement
• Is the assignment of numerals to objects.
• Nominal
• Examples Gender, party affiliation, and place of
  birth
• Ordinal
• Examples SES, Student rank, and Place in race
• Interval
• Examples Test scores, personality and attitude
  scales.
• Ratio
• Examples Weight, length, reaction time, and
  number of responses

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Understanding Variables and Hypotheses (Charters,
1992)

• Objects
• Things that one does research on.
• People, districts, nations, etc.
• Properties of objects
• Give us a way to talk about how objects are alike
  and how they differ.
• Scores
• Values on the property of interest
• Must be at least two.

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Values

• Exhaustive
• Must be able to assign a value to all objects.
• Mutually Exclusive
• Each object can only be assigned one of a set of
  values.
• A variable with only one value is not a variable.
• It is a constant.

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How variables are used

• Two major piles
• Descriptive and Verificational (cause-effect)
• Descriptive
• Describes a population in relation to one or more
  variables.
• Sex bias in textbooks
• Trends in dropout rates
• Verificational
• Does A cause B
• Associations between A and B
• Is the observed relationship greater than would
  be expected by chance?

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Hypothesis

• A proposed explanation for a phenomenon.
• Two types
• Casual order - 'A causes B'
• Correlational A is related to B

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Sorting Out Variables in a Study

• Purpose of most empirical studies in behavioral
  research is to identify causal relationships.
• Independent variables (IV)
• Causes, determinants, predictors, factors.
• Dependent variables (DV)
• Consequences, outcomes, effects
• Moderator variables
• Variables that change the relationship between
  the IV and DV.
• Aptitude by treatment interactions

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Dissecting Hypotheses

• Identify the two variables and sort them into IV
  and DV.
• Describe each variable.
• Object, property, mode of variation, elaborate on
  mode of variation.
• Specify the relationship expected between the two
  variables.
• Note the unit of analysis implied or actually
  used.

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Additional comments

• Simple Hypotheses have only two
  variables--bivariate relations.
• H.1 Authoritarian principals are more effective
  than non-authoritarian principals
• What are the names of the two variables?
• How do they vary?
• Complex Hypotheses have more than two variables
  and sometimes contain a moderating variable.
• H.1 Authoritarian principals are more effective
  than non-authoritarian principals when goals are
  clear, but non-authoritarian principals are more
  effective when goals are ambiguous.
• What are the names of the three variables?
• How do they vary?

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Practice

• H.1 The greater the weight of a five-year old,
  the taller the child.
• What is the object?
• What are the variables?
• What are the names of the variables?
• How do they vary-categorical or continuous?
• What is the moderating variable?
• What is the independent variable?
• What is the dependent variable?

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Practice

• H.2 Authoritarian principals command more
  loyalty than non-authoritarian ones when they
  have influence, but non-authoritarian principals
  command greater loyalty when principals lack
  influence.
• What is the object?
• What are the variables?
• What are the names of the variables?
• How do they vary-categorical or continuous?
• What is the moderating variable?
• What is the independent variable?
• What is the dependent variable?

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• H.3. Secondary teachers are more custodial in
  pupil control ideology than elementary teachers.
• What is the object?
• What are the variables?
• What are the names of the variables?
• How do they vary-categorical or continuous?
• What is the moderating variable?
• What is the independent variable?
• What is the dependent variable?

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• H. 4. Academic achievement will be greater among
  students taught by autocratic teachers than those
  taught by permissive teachers.
• What is the object?
• What are the variables?
• What are the names of the variables?
• How do they vary-categorical or continuous?
• What is the moderating variable?
• What is the independent variable?
• What is the dependent variable?

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• H. 5. The larger the size of a community
  colleges instructional faculty the greater the
  degree of administrative centralization.
• What is the object?
• What are the variables?
• What are the names of the variables?
• How do they vary-categorical or continuous?
• What is the moderating variable?
• What is the independent variable?
• What is the dependent variable?

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• H. 6. Democratic supervisors have teachers who
  demonstrate more creativity in teaching methods
  than autocratic supervisors.
• What is the object?
• What are the variables?
• What are the names of the variables?
• How do they vary-categorical or continuous?
• What is the moderating variable?
• What is the independent variable?
• What is the dependent variable?

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• H. 7. When administrators have influence with
  their superiors, authoritarian administrators
  command more loyalty from subordinates than
  non-authoritarian ones, but when administrators
  have little influence, then non-authoritarian
  administrators command more loyalty than
  authoritarian ones .
• What is the object?
• What are the variables?
• What are the names of the variables?
• How do they vary-categorical or continuous?
• What is the moderating variable?
• What is the independent variable?
• What is the dependent variable?

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• H. 8. The stronger the collective efficacy of a
  school, the higher the level of level of student
  achievement.
• What is the object?
• What are the variables?
• What are the names of the variables?
• How do they vary-categorical or continuous?
• What is the moderating variable?
• What is the independent variable?
• What is the dependent variable?

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Now try it with your proposal topic

• What is the object?
• What are the variables?
• What are the names of the variables?
• How do they vary-categorical or continuous?
• What is the moderating variable?
• What is the independent variable?
• What is the dependent variable?
• State how you expect them to be related to one
  another.

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Literature reviews

• Purpose
• Place each work in the context of its
  contribution to the understanding of the subject
  under review
• Describe the relationship of each work to the
  others under consideration
• Identify new ways to interpret, and shed light on
  any gaps in, previous research
• Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory
  previous studies
• Identify areas of prior scholarship to prevent
  duplication of effort
• Point the way forward for further research
• Determine where your work will fit

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Literature Reviews

• Hopefully by the end of this class you will
  become a more critical consumer.
• Questions you should ask when reading a report
• What were the research questions?
• Who or what was studied?
• How were they sampled?
• What are the variables?
• How were they measured?
• What design was used?
• What statistics were used?
• Do the conclusions follow from the statistics?

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Writing Literature Reviews

• Avoid summarizing a body of literature
• Attempt to identify shortcomings
• Provide analysis
• Design problems
• Problems with measures
• Unique subsets of the population not included
• Be very very careful
• Plagiarism can sneak up on you

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Finding Articles and Questionnaires

• Search engines
• Be careful much of what is on the internet is of
  low quality.
• However, you can find peer reviewed articles
  using Yahoo.
• Google Scholar
• http//www.google.com/

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Finding Articles and Questionnaires

• Research Databases and Indexes http//www.unm.edu/
  
• General
• EBSCOhost
• Expanded Academic ASAP
• Specialized
• JSTOR
• Linked to the articles
• SportDiscus
• Pscyinfo
• Pubmed
• I frequently use
• Web of Science

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Next Class

• Bring three hypotheses and a rationale for each.
• Also, address the following when applicable
• What is the object?
• What are the variables?
• What are the names of the variables?
• How do they vary-categorical or continuous?
• What is the moderating variable?
• What is the independent variable?
• What is the dependent variable?
• State how you expect them to be related to one
  another.